What are the MeSH tree structures?

The hierarchical 'branch-like' structure in Medline presents the thesaurus by breaking it down into more specific topics

What is the Cochrane Library?

Six high-quality databases health professionals use to synthesize the literature without having to read every study (UBC Library buys 'Ovid EBMR' but it is also available from Wiley publishers)

What is keyword (also 'natural language' or 'freetext') searching?

In literature searching, the use of everyday natural words and phrases, instead of index terms, to search bibliographic databases

What is Health Canada - Drugs and Health Products?

This Canadian government website lists those drugs approved for use in Canada including their 'drug monographs' (giving an overview of their testing on humans) for free viewing

What is the hierarchy or 'pyramid' of evidence?

This pyramid has RCTs and systematic reviews at the top followed below by lower levels of evidence such as cohort & case controlled studies and called the [blank] of evidence

What is the scope note?

This part of the MeSH record provides definitions for terms and date when MeSH was created, its entry terms and list of synonyms

What is a randomized controlled trial?

The study includes treatment and comparison groups and participants are randomly assigned to each; an intervention is given and groups are observed. Outcomes such as improvement or harms are noted. These studies are considered the most reliable type of clinical study

What is truncation or 'wildcard' searching?

This is the name for a search when * $ : or ? are used within words or phrases to search for variants (it is also a way to improve recall in a search)

Who is K. Ann McKibbon?

This Canadian health librarian working at the McMaster University in the filters unit called HIRU is among the most-cited librarians in Medline

What is Clinical Evidence (BMJ)?

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) publishes a synopsis of medical evidence (requiring a subscription) and rates each intervention as:

Beneficial

Likely to be beneficial

Unknown effectiveness

Likely to be ineffective

What is the MeSH database or MeSH record?

In PubMed, this is where you can restrict search to major descriptors and check off the box "Do Not Explode" (i.e., do not include MeSH terms below this term in the MeSH tree).

What are Medline & Embase?

For reviews of health care interventions or treatments, these two databases are most commonly used first to identify studies

Medline is an 'unfiltered' source even though it has some filtered sources of medical evidence

Medline contains primary research (original research) and articles that synthesize that research (filtered) making it 'what kind of source'

What is the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ)?

The five top medical journals are BMJ, Lancet, JAMA and the New Eng J of Medicine and this fifth Canadian journal title that goes back to 1911

What is UpToDate?

This popular database requires a subscription and is viewed by health librarians as overpriced ...though clinicians in internal medicine areas often ask for it

What are Boolean operators (see George Boole)?

These are used in all searches with two sets ...& include “AND” “OR” and “NOT” (and are named after a famous English mathematician).

What is McMaster University?

This Canadian university is widely seen as the birthplace of evidence-based medicine due to the work of Gordon Guyatt and David Sackett among others.

What are search filters or hedges?

These predefined strategies improve recall in a search (and are highly sensitive in retrieving 'all relevant articles')

What are the R. Brian Haynes filters?

These filters, named after the Canadian researcher who tests them, are used in PubMed's clinical queries feature

What is SumSearch and the TRIP Database?

These two metasearch tools have been created to search across several sources of evidence all at once

What is Patient (population), Intervention, Comparison and Outcome?

Constructing an effective combination of search terms involves breaking down the question into ‘concepts’ and keywords. P-I-C-O can help to structure the search (but it is not essential that every element is used) and stands for - what?

What is First Consult?

This evidence-based clinical information tool synthesizes findings from journals and other EBM sources into a templated knowledge base. It offers tools for differential diagnosis, evaluation and management of conditions, patient education - and integrates with MD Consult

What are the MeSH topical qualifiers or subheadings?

...the name for qualifiers in MeSH that increase precision... all 83 of them 'float' among 24,000+ MeSH

What is the grey literature?

When a Canadian study is not published in one of the major biomedical indexes but useful to Canadian physicians it is said to be "this type of literature"

What are systematic reviews?

These reviews of the literature aim for the highest recall ....and require reproducible searches and detailed documentation